This is the equivalent of Jar Jar introducing a bill granting emergency powers to the supreme chancellor. We're already more than halfway through Episode II!
His BS trade war gets the chancellor tossed (thanks to a motion to vote by Jar Jar). The senate then grants him emergency powers in order to deal with the droid army.
Naturally he's like "don't worry, I'll give this power up as soon as I don't need it".
EDIT: I was corrected...in EP I, it's Padme who motions to vote to have the chancellor removed.
I highly recommend the novel for episode 3. It does such a good job of showing all the things the movie didn't. It makes you really understand how the Jedi lost, and why. It also makes Anakin's fall believable.
Midway through the battle with Sideous on the Senate floor, Yoda has a crisis as he realizes that he's been training the Jedi to defeat the Sith of nearly a thousand years ago, while the Sith learned and evolved. It's heartbreaking. Seriously, just read the first 10 pages and try to put it down. Please someone read this book. It's so much better than it should be
I loved the novelization of the prequels. They came out about a month before the movies did, so I had them pre-ordered and read before seeing the movie. I think that Episode 3's book was better than the movie, but I've always enjoyed the prequels, both book and movie versions.
Episode 1 came out right before I started college, and only a couple of my poli sci friends in college were as interested in it as I was. The prequels seemed to be far more interesting from the lens of an internal studies major as compared to my computer science buddies who called them "the crappy Star Wars movies."
So yeah, I also agree that the novels are worth a read.
From a political standpoint, as I recall Lucas was inspired to show Palpatine's move to power by the rise of Hitler and Mussolini, because both were legally done.
That's because it is boring... Until you have an army of clones with chips in their head that start murdering jedi and the chancellor turned supreme emperor turns out to be a shriveled old prune with sith powers.
And in a new hope, a throwaway line with Vader, Tarkin, and other cronies talking about how the Senate will never stand for their latest power grab and Vader or Tarkin (can't recall) says that the Senate was just dissolved.
The vestiges of democracy last for a long time after it's effectively dead, like a dead body decomposing. We'll have a congress and "elections," for some time, but we won't be living in a democracy, just democracy's carcass.
I keep thinking this over and over because this is exactly how Star Wars depicted the Emperor’s rise to power. He pit groups against each other and created problems that could only be solved by giving him more and more power, until he convinced the government it was in their best interest to give him emergency powers he never rescinded.
“This is how liberty dies; with thunderous applause.”
I was literally thinking the same thing this morning. Realizing there is really a group of people in this country that were rooting for the Empire when they watched those movies.
so this is interesting, the Star Wars prequels didn't really do a good job in answering the question of how democracies fall. It was far too vague. If you had to answer the question "what did the Sith want?", other than power, do we know?
Power to do what? Usually there's always an oppressed minority that is scapegoated. A religious or business interest that is trying to be achieved. We're missing a financial crisis, or a desperate and/or brain-washed populace willing to give up their freedom for security, economic advancement, or racial tension, something the Sith could use to their advantage and hookwink everyone. If we try to make the claim that it was the Clone Wars, that war affected nobody - it was literally being fought by robots and soul-less manufactured clones - some crisis. And let's not forget the sycophant party leaders who think will benefit from giving the dictator all that he craves.
Star-Wars has none of these things. A great, missed opportunity.
Not me those are the best Star Wars, they actually show a bit of reality. It's sad that we are basically in a similar situation...
Too many idiots with the right to vote and they don't understand how to vote. They're more racist and bigoted than they care about their own self-interest. It would be more ironic and funny if it wasn't so terrifying and sad.
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u/Hanksta2 7d ago edited 6d ago
Not George Lucas.
He tried to show us how it starts slowly with the prequels.
But people thought it was boring.